When Bret Piatt moved from San Francisco to San Antonio in 2004, he found the city didn’t have much to offer entrepreneurs and startups.
“In the Bay Area, you could go to just about any coffee shop and find someone working on a startup, and you could have a conversation with them about if they were interested in finding a co-founder. That didn't exist when I first got to San Antonio,” Piatt, CEO of Jungle Disk, said.
That dearth of resources and connectivity has changed dramatically over the years, he said, in part due to organizations like Geekdom and Tech Bloc, which offer startups and tech entrepreneurs collaborative spaces, expert guidance and the necessary tools to grow and thrive. In the process, these groups, along with a growing number of local companies, have helped nurture the tech and innovation ecosystem.
Piatt’s entrance in the local tech industry started at AT&T. After working for the company for about four years in the Bay Area, he moved to San Antonio, where he was associate director of security product management. At the time, AT&T's headquarters was in San Antonio.
Four years later, in 2007, he joined cloud computing services provider Rackspace Technology, a company that has helped launch many notable entrepreneurs and startups. Piatt worked at Rackspace for a little over eight years, overseeing everything from product security and compliance issues to corporate development and strategy initiatives.
Piatt left Rackspace in 2016 to serve as president and CEO of cybersecurity company Jungle Disk. Rackspace had acquired Jungle Disk in 2008, which at the time was an Atlanta-based online backup company. Piatt worked on the post-merger integration, he said, eventually moving the company’s team to San Antonio.
Then, in a multimillion-dollar deal, several subsidiaries in 2016 formed on behalf of Jungle Disk and raised $11 million in equity among eight investors, leading the firm to become independent from Rackspace.
With Piatt at the helm, he helped grow Jungle Disk, which he said has fluctuated between 18 to 30 employees over the years, depending on what the company was working on. Jungle Disk recently bolstered its workforce and customer base as it acquired three complementary cyber businesses — Los Angeles-based KeepItSafe, LiveVault and OffsiteDataSync — from tech holdings company J2 Global Inc. (NASDAQ: JCOM). All of the companies will be headquartered in downtown San Antonio and bring Jungle Disk’s headcount to about 130 global employees.
This deal was the first for the San Antonio/Austin co-headquartered Dry Line, a private equity investment firm created last year by Piatt, Austin-based investor Matt Morris and local tech investor Michael Girdley.
Piatt is also a lead investing partner and co-founder of Porthcawl, which is comprised by a local base of investors, including its other co-founder, Huw Edwards.
Piatt said that throughout his career he’s held positions similar to that of a chief executive, overseeing business units or product lines at big public companies. The main difference now is that he no longer has a built-in peer group at Jungle Disk.
“At AT&T, we had 180 product managers. So if I got stuck on something or I was experiencing an issue, there was always five or six other people in the room I could talk to.”
At a smaller private company like Jungle Disk, that same support structure isn’t in place, he said. “But thankfully I've got a bunch of friends that run businesses and are executives who can sit down with me and help me think through a problem.”
After some 17 years in San Antonio, Piatt said that kind of support system — coupled with the relatively low cost of living —has helped make the city a great destination for entrepreneurs.
“Now we have thousands of folks that are involved in the tech industry, so you have enough of a critical mass at this point that all the things you need are here. I really believe in San Antonio, and I think we'll be starting or buying even more businesses here over the next few years.”
Fast Facts
Age: 44
Title: CEO, Jungle Disk
Year founded: 2006, acquired by Rackspace in 2008, sold to Porthcawl in 2016
Employees: 30 in San Antonio, approximately 130 globally
